Dialing for Shabbat

Shabbat’s not what it used to be. Of course the basic observance is the same, but the trappings have changed and been updated — sometimes radically.

Friday night dinners, traditionally heavy meat meals, are now often vegetarian or dairy, even sushi, explained Lisa Mechanick, events coordinator at Discovery Production out of New York.

“It’s not like your grandparents used to do it,” said Mechanick, who heads Discovery’s 1-800 Shabbat, a national project that invites adults to revisit Shabbat by spending a traditional Shabbat with a Torah-observant family.

The project, which has been successful in a handful of American cities, ran its first Milwaukee event on June 13. Sponsored by Ohr HaTorah-Jewish Heritage Center, it invited singles, couples and families, primarily the non-Torah observant, to participate by being housed by Glendale families, attend services, eat with a host family and gather for a shared dessert reception.

“The idea is to engage people in a traditional Shabbos experience,” said Rabbi Akiva Freilich, director of Ohr HaTorah. “Also, participants can meet local families who are living successful lives as observant Jews.”

An added element is the program’s directed invitation to singles and families, and its method of matching by family status and age. “It’s a nice opportunity for singles to meet each other in a structured manner, with more common ground,” said Freilich.

West Side resident Malkie Cohen agreed. “It’s hard to find a welcoming place for singles and families,” she said. “I think that made it more comfortable for the singles that there were other singles there [but] it was a regular setting.”

Cohen, who has been observing Shabbat for a few years, was impressed by the people she met, their devotion to learning and their hospitality.

“They really show you a lot of respect and admiration. There’s no judgment,” she said, adding that the teachings made the weekend, “almost like going to a retreat.”

Lighting a spark

Madisonian Sharon Mondry and her three-year old son, Zev, received a flier in the mail and decided to participate in the event, partially because she’s planning to move to Milwaukee soon.

Moreover, Mondry loves organized Shabbat programs, she said. “I’m a single mom and Shabbat has been hard to keep going, so I really love doing organized Shabbat things and exposing my son to thing we don’t do at home.”

Mondry was hosted and home housed by Karin and Warren Slaten and their daughters, ages 5 and 8. “The kids had fun while the adults had a nice conversation,” said Karin, a member of Anshe Sfard Kehillat Torah.

“We enjoyed having a variety around the Shabbos table,” she said of the five extra guests they hosted for the program.

Though she doesn’t expressly try to bring people closer to Judaism, Karin hopes that her guests’ experience opens a new door for them. “It might spark something,” she said.
“Even if they say, ‘Maybe I’ll light candles this week,’ or ‘I think I’ll go buy a challah.’”

Discovery, a national organization that runs outreach programs, handled most of the logistics, sending out e-mail invitations, acting as the main contact for the event, providing host names and scheduling information, said Mechanick.

The program was one aspect of 1-800 Shabbat. The other is a home hospitality hotline. “The main premise is that if someone’s traveling they should call 1-800 Shabbat and we’ll try to find a family to give them a Shabbat experience with home hospitality,” said Mechanick, who runs the service.

Ohr HaTorah has sponsored “a few” Discovery programs recently, said Freilich. “[Discovery] came up with a whole group of new and innovative ideas. They put a lot of effort into the programs, and make them very user friendly and easy to work with them.”

Freilich plans to continue his relationship with Discovery with a three-part seminar called Summer Wisdom Series beginning in July at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center. Those lectures, co-sponsored by the Milwaukee Jewish Kollel-Center for Jewish Studies, will bring speakers from New York.

And this is just the beginning of 1-800 Shabbat in Milwaukee also, said Freilich. “We’ll do it again soon, maybe in another neighborhood, maybe on the West Side. This was a beginning.”